How the Iranian-Saudi Proxy Struggle Tore Apart the Middle East | Hacker News Reader

How the Iranian-Saudi Proxy Struggle Tore Apart the Middle East

nytimes.com

27 pointsLordFrith22 comments

I really disagree with this article. This is the sort of fundamentalist thinking that Americans trained themselves in during the Cold War.

> Behind much of the Middle East’s chaos — the wars in Syria and Yemen

Both of these wars are domestic in nature. In any Civil War parties naturally seek to ally themselves with outside powers. The powers then see the opportunity to win big for small(ish) cash, or at least avoid losing an ally.

It is true that Iran and the Saudis are fighting for supremacy, but it is not true that all the wars in the middle east are because of that.

Its equally wrong to force all of this into a even deeper into a pure sectarian conflict. Neither the Saudis or the Iranians are above supporting people that they ideologically disagree with it is politically useful to them, even people who would attack and kill them if they could.

This article tries hard and fails to make everything about Iran. Saudi Arabia going against the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, clearly that is because of Iran. The Saudis have enough reason to make sure they have allies in Egypt even when Iran is not a factor. Every countries ties not to have enemies on all sides.

>This article tries hard and fails to make everything about Iran.

No, it just says there is a rivalry. It does say it started when Iran decided to promote revolution throughout the Middle East, but has gone on of its own momentum ever since.

>It is true that Iran and the Saudis are fighting for supremacy, but it is not true that all the wars in the middle east are because of that.

The article wasn't claiming that, but it was claiming those wars are a lot harder to end because of the Iran-Saudi conflict. I don't see how you can deny that.

Note that El Sisi was Egyptian military attache in Riyadh for a time (hint, hint).

The invasion of Iraq, which the New York Times played a major role in, tore the ME apart.

Very soon we'll be blaming some other group for Libya and Syria.

i have been reading lately how the direction of Saudi Arabia changed dramatically after the seizing of the Grand Mosque.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Mosque_seizure

It is interesting that Iran blamed the United States for that, and mobs burned down a US embassy because of the propaganda. Does anything actually point to US involvement?

The Saudis and Kuwaitis gave the US 30 billion dollars to attack Iraq for the first gulf war. After giving Iraq a loan of 25 billion to attack Iran, which basically put Iraq in a difficult financial position which the Kuwaitis and the Saudis would not help it get out of it by cutting their supply, so he threatened them with war http://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/18/business/iraq-threatens-em... But at the end of the day who gave Saudis all this money, which ended with a bunch of backward tribal nomads running international political schemes? The Americans built Saudis from scratch, and their little monster now rocks the cradle.

> Kuwaitis and the Saudis would not help it get out of.

There is long distance between 'would not help' and 'drop all your debt claims against me'.

Nobody had forced Saddam to invade Iran. He took the risk and took the debt knowingly. He then turned around and and claimed 'I did all of this for you, so I don't have to pay anything back'.

The Americans did help to build the Saudis, but the Saudis would almost certainly have succeeded without the Americans as well. Saudi Arabia was never a America child.

That news article does not say that SA funded the Iraq-Iran war:

"Both Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates provided financial backing for Iraq's eight-year war against Iran, which ended in an armistice in 1988."

The title implies the middle east was ever not torn apart. A quick glance through a history book shows it has always had more than its fair share of sectarian violence.

It is resource starved and a major crossroads, why should we expect anything else without major effort to fix it?

You are implying that there was not 'a major effort' to 'fix it' yet.

And you are also implying that 'a major effort to fix it' would make us expect something new.

Both things are wrong. The US has been military active in middle east since almost 40 years (longer with the CIA). The US has major military bases all over the place, has invaded, bombed and fought wars with many countries, has supported one group or another in a civil conflict in all of them.

All of this was basically done because of the Carter Doctrine, the ME is a vital strategic area and its stability is very important to keep the oil flowing. How does this not qualify as a major effort?

What of all of this suggest to you that the US, or even a bigger international community could 'fix it' with a 'major effort'?

What history book did you read that didn't include 600-700 years of ottoman domination?

The article didn't mention Qatar. Difficult to see it as complete without understanding what the Qatari's are doing, especially in Syria.

This article missed a very important point: Iran encouraged and supported the invasion of Iraq. They supplied the evidence and polticians that would topple Sadam and take over his goverment. The Iraq was a major Iranian victory.

> They supplied the evidence

Can you please elaborate? Some links?

I assume that's in reference to Ahmed Chalabi. See,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Chalabi

https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Pushed-America-Extraordinary/...

I haven't seen the claim proven before, but, I'm not sure it needs to be: the man was an asset to Iran, knowingly or not.

Thanks. I don't see anything supporting the theory that he worked for Iran before the 2003 US invasion started.

It's also known that the people who worked with G. W. Bush planned the war in Iraq even before 2001 and that W. asked for some link from Saddam to 9/11 to be produced. Then even lacking it, the link was "suggested" to the public. The politicians and media accepted that narrative.

Now claiming "it was all Iran" just doesn't fit.

Yes. For the record, I agree with what you wrote. Actual evidence suggests that American and European intelligence agencies knew that the justification for the war was being manufactured; Chalabi was simply a convenient scapegoat.

The Iranians provided that link. Certainly with a more rational goverment we would never take intelligence information ( for example the famous yellow cake) from a hostile goverment with more restraint. Indeed Hussein through the US invasion was a bluff until the last minute.

Iran supplied evidence that the US gave as reason to invade Iraq? Nice try!

How Iraq was broken is still fresh in our minds, so don't attempt to rewrite history.

Why is this noteworthy? This is obvious to anyone with even minimal knowledge of the Middle East.

There was an Iraq/Iran war in the 80's with casualties in the millions. Iraq, a country with a dominant Shia population was ruled by Saddam and the Baathists, an elite Sunni minority.

The conflicts and politics in the Middle East are very complex, but you can paint it with a broad Sunni vs. Shia brush. Before this, there was a secular, pan-Arab movement in the middle east, tacitally supported by the USSR, but the west didn't like the idea of a pan-Arab movement. So this is the result

I recently listened to a podcast where Jeremy Scahill (the author of the book Dirty Wars) claims Saudi Arabia has been belligerently bombing Yemen to show unruly groups inside of Saudi Arabia that they have the ability to bomb people too.

https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/episode-52-dirty-war...

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